The Most Active Threads Since Friday

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Taylor Swift album Tortured Poets Department leaked early?" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. You may not have heard of Taylor Swift or her new album titled "The Tortured Poets Department", but Swift is a budding young artist who, despite being somewhat media shy, has been getting increasing attention. This thread was started Thursday evening by a poster concerned that Swift's latest album, which was due for release on Friday, may have been leaked in advance. She questioned whether a true Swift fan would listen to the album before it was officially released or flood the Internet with fake links to mislead others. But it soon became clear that most of those posting in the thread have indeed listened to the album. As a result, posters begin analyzing the lyrics as if they were the latest issuances of the Oracle of Delphi. Many posters view the lyrics as strictly biographical and draw sweeping conclusions from the simplest of lines. For instance, the line "you sacrifice us to the gods of your bluest days" is suggested as proof that a former boyfriend suffers from "major depression". Several posters were preoccupied with guessing which songs were about which boyfriend. Then the thread turned to posters offering opinions about their favorite songs from the album and other aspects of the music. As you would expect at this point, there is some pushback from those who believe Swift is overrated. Some complain that the songs all sound the same. There were also complaints about Swift's tendency to release multiple versions of an album and whether that is a simple cash grab. This proclivity was especially egregious in this case because Swift released the album and two hours later released an "anthology" version of the same album including more songs. A number of posters complained that anyone who had pre-ordered the album would have to now purchase the second version. But, as anyone who has had even the slightest contact with Swifties will know, criticism is not warmly received and most of it was roundly rebutted. To be fair, some of the critics do appear a bit foolish. The anthology version of the album has 31 songs and some posters, as well as the New York Times, complain that a shorter, better album could have been created instead. I am not sure how deep in the sand one's head needs to be to have missed the entire controversy about the shorter version of the album, but that's just lazy criticism. After reading a considerable number of the 40 pages that currently make up this thread, my conclusion is that many posters a decade or so ago were bitter over breakups and found solace in Swift's music which tends to focus on being bitter over breakups. Now, those same posters are married, have kids, and are well over any past breakups. Yet, Swift is still singing about them. So a gulf has developed between Swift and many of the posters in this thread. On the other hand, there are plenty of young women who are currently bitter about breakups so Swift's albums still sell in droves.

The next most active thread was the one that I have previously discussed about the bike ride on Connecticut Avenue. I'll skip that and go to the next which was posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. Titled, "HS principal and kinky boots", this thread is simultaneously among the most ridiculous that I've ever read and almost perfectly representative of the current state of our culture. The thread begins with the original poster linking to a tweet from West Potomac High School showing an advertisement for the school's upcoming theater production, a performance of "Kinky Boots". In the tweet, the school's principal is shown wearing thigh-high boots of the type that are, presumably, worn in the play. Frankly, in my opinion, this is nothing more than a light-hearted attempt to support the school's production and shouldn't provoke anything beyond a smile. But, if everyone shared my opinion, DCUM probably wouldn't exist because there would be nothing about which to argue. While many posters either applaud the principal or see nothing objectionable, a great many posters are very upset. Those that are bothered are mostly opposed to the positive portrayal of drag queens, both in the play and by the principal. They see this an attempt to force sexual topics and attitudes onto school children. For the most part, the play's critics have no idea what it is about other than that it has drag queens. But, that's enough. As one poster succinctly puts it, "Too woke for me." Another chimes in saying, "Completely inappropriate for high school." One poster even asked "What is WestPo?", apparently not even knowing the name of the high school putting on the show. As another poster responded, "This sums up the problem with this discussion. People who know nothing, with no stake in the community, fomenting right-wing culture war talking points just because a principal borrowed a costume piece for a funny photo." One poster took the time to summarize the musical's plot line and I am going to quote that in full because I think that it is worth understanding what exactly has riled up these folks:

Have any of you furious with the schools choice ever seen the show? It's actually about a shop/store that had hand made shoes forever, and when mass industrialization came along and people could get cheap shoes, they were going to go out of business. People would have lost jobs and livelihoods.

Happenstance (I think a mugging?) Leads the shoemaker to a drag queen who explains the mass produced shoes don't work for males (center of gravity is different), and the shoe store begins to make shoes that work for the drag queens. Store stays open (rather than selling the building to the highest bidder which would have made the owner rich and screwed all the long-term employees), people stay employed, drag queen get sturdy shoes [boots] where the heels don't break off as they dance. It's a win-win-win.

I may have thought the previous thread was ridiculous, but I hadn't yet encountered the next most active thread. Titled, "Getting the ick from date’s drink order?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum, the original poster says that the guy she is on a date with just ordered a "vodka and soda with lemon" and specified Tito’s vodka. For reasons that I don't understand, the original poster is very bothered by this. This poster is likely a troll, having started threads using a number of different identities including a college student, parent of a college student, and a married woman. I supposed there is nothing stopping a married parent of a college student from enrolling in college herself and going on a date. If that happened, I assume that it would be a letdown if the date ordered Tito's as if it were Dom Perignon, but I'm still skeptical. However, it doesn't appear that the original poster bothered to post again, so don't blame her for the length of this thread. It turns out that many people have strong feelings about cocktails. For some Tito's is fine but for others it is too basic. Some posters take issue with vodka and soda all together, especially when ordered by men. The drink is supposed to be limited to women watching calories. There is a huge debate about vodka and whether expensive vodkas are really much better than cheaper brands. Some assert that low-priced vodka is nothing but rubbing alcohol but even they agree that once you get above the bottom rung of vodkas they are pretty much the same. Given all the comparisons to rubbing alchohol, I am compelled to caution posters not to drink isopropyl alcohol. A hangover will be the least of your worries. What stood out to me ws how, for many people, a cocktail is not simply a cocktail. Rather cocktails are full of symbolism. Consider one poster's view:

Vodka on the rocks is far more masculine than vodka soda plus a lemon wedge. And also, Grey Goose means you’re not an unsophisticated miser who wants bargain brand Tito’s. Grey Goose on the rocks is a perfectly acceptable drink order for a masculine man.

Who would think that ordering vodka was so wrapped up in one's masculinity? There is also a debate about whether a martini has gin or vodka in it, leading me to question just how knowledgable some of these posters are when it comes to cocktails.

The final thread that I will discuss was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "Violent crime @ UChicago", the original poster embedded a tweet containing video of an attempted armed robbery of a female University of Chicago student. The student was able to grab the pistol from the assailant, remove its magazine, and get away. There is a poster in this forum who is absolutely obsessed with crime at the University of Chicago. I can't guarantee that this poster is that poster, but she certainly fits the pattern. Later in the thread the poster embedded additional tweets about other crimes that she claimed involved the University. One of those, the shooting of a policeman, didn't happen anywhere near campus. The policeman was taken to the University of Chicago Hospital for treatment, but otherwise there was no connection. I assume that this poster just trolls X looking for tweets (or are the Xs now?) about crime and the University of Chicago. Nobody in the thread really denies that there is crime around the University of Chicago. Many urban universities are criticized due to the, often exaggerated, crime risks. In the case of this thread, several posters with firsthand experience with the University of Chicago attempt to put things into perspective. Yes, there is crime. But, it is not as pervasive as some would have it and students generally don't feel unsafe. Out of curiosity, I did a quick search for statistics regarding crime on college campuses. According the Campus Safety Rankings compiled by College Transitions, the two colleges with the worst safety rankings are the University of Ohio and the University of Michigan. The University of Chicago has a significantly better ranking than either of them, coming in slightly better than DC's Howard University and slightly worse than Boston College. Much of this thread has little to do with the University of Chicago. Crime is another topic that has become part of America's culture war and many of the attitudes about it are more reflective of politically-motivated portrayals than they are of reality. Some posters blame crime on Chicago's Democratic leadership. Others on "soft on crime" prosecutors. In the video in the original post, a man is shown sitting on the grass while the woman fights off her attacker. The guy does nothing other than watch, not intervening or even calling 911. He deservedly gets lots of criticism for his inaction. However, others opine that had he intervened he would have quickly become the culprit of the story, using Daniel Penny as an example. Penny is the guy who strangled a homeless man to death on the New York subway. I am not sure what relevance he has to this story. At any rate, I assume that we should expect additional threads in the future about how the University of Chicago exists in a lawless state of nature. Someone certainly seems committed to providing that impression.